1. What do you think?

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2odastream
6

2odastream 6

When GTA Chinatown Wars was being promoted, a good portion of the marketing focused on the Lee Family's 'Master of Arms' Ling Shang. Being featured in-game and in artwork moreso than any of the other GTA "cover girls" like Misty and Rochell'le, Ling plays a pivotal role in the game's story by starting Huang on his heroes journey proper (because he didn't give a f*ck about his dad).

From what we seen in these three or so missions she appeared in, Lin was cool, capable and kick ass. Her death doesn't subvert the typical formula or anything, but the moment is so shocking it makes me think it was all a big gag played by Rockstar to give us a potential GOAT character and then yank it away immediately.

But, I think to myself, "was that her intended purpose all through development?" I believe otherwise. I came up with an idea, fuelled by memories of old talk surrounding the protagonists of GTAV and a video I saw a while back about how CW's beta development isn't really known. That idea, a bit of a tinfoil conspiracy I know, was that Ling was intended to be the protagonist of the game until focus was changed to Huang later in development.

The pieces seem to fit. Huang, to me, was never really a convincing killer in context of the story. Characters like Tommy and Vic have the attitude of a criminal, I think, whereas Huang is the kind of whiny kid you'd have trouble imagining a shoplifter let alone a mass murderer. I know this isn't particularly convincing, other GTA protags have this problem of doing out of character things because the player controls them 80% of the time, but Huang seems out of place in his own story and that's always been weird to me.

Another thing I remember is Huang's motivations and background, compared to Ling's, are a bit of a stretch. Huang talks about avenging his father one moment and then doesn't give a sh*t the next, he gets his push when Ling dies but he's still the over reluctant hero and Lin is barely mentioned again so this bit of development doesn't stick.

Let's compare the backgrounds of the two, Huang vs. Ling: Huang is a pretty average kid who grew up outside of the Family and wants nothing to do with them, yet keeps doing jobs for inconsistent reasons. He may not have even murdered a guy until the events of this game. Ling, on the other hand, is a hardened criminal that has clearly been in the Family for some time and would have ample reason to do the same sh*t Lee did with no fuss. No contest, but they've both got pretty vague backstory so maybe I'm inferring too much from faulty memory.

Now this is where I'm out and out going to admit some bias. Part of my belief in this theory is wishful thinking, as I really dislike Huang as a character. It might be the lack of a memorable performance, there's no voice acting to speak of, but on paper Huang's lines just come off as whiny and snot nosed. His motivations, like I said, are crap. He regularly insults characters, but I only see a problem with this because the whole cast is way more interesting and better written than he is. I think what we see of Ling is way more tolerable than a whole game's worth of Huang sh*t, and I think the protagonist we got feels like he was rushed into the final draft of a script.

That's what I think. It's my personally theory that in early stages of the game we were supposed to play as Ling, but Rockstar chickened out and rushed Huang into the story to give us a more traditional GTA "new kid in the big city" protagonist. Evidence for this is shown in the game's early material showing Ling in a clearly bigger role than what we got, Ling's being more effective and likeable as a character, as well as Huang's very strange motivations throughout the game's missions. It would've made more sense to start off in Liberty with a protagonist pre-established into the hierarchy, than to fly one in order to start the story like literally every other GTA game.

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Helegad
727

Helegad 727

I clicked "sounds reasonable" because it does but it would not surprise me in any way, shape or form if this was a load of bollocks.

Rockstar has a history of using chicks and side characters for their prominent GTA artworks. It's purely marketing. GTA demographic is mostly males (no surprises there) who love tits and ass.

Remember that San Andreas had virtually no artworks of CJ (apart from orange-shirt dude which is questionable at best) but plenty of everyone else, and Misty can be found in at least half the artworks for GTA III but is ingame for all of two or three missions then never mentioned again.

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2odastream
6

2odastream 6

I clicked "sounds reasonable" because it does but it would not surprise me in any way, shape or form if this was a load of bollocks.

Rockstar has a history of using chicks and side characters for their prominent GTA artworks. It's purely marketing. GTA demographic is mostly males (no surprises there) who love tits and ass.

Remember that San Andreas had virtually no artworks of CJ (apart from orange-shirt dude which is questionable at best) but plenty of everyone else, and Misty can be found in at least half the artworks for GTA III but is ingame for all of two or three missions then never mentioned again.

Well, at each gta (starting with III) there is a mascot - the female character, and in game or does not appear absolutely, or on some missions.

True. It was just strange to me that of all the cover girls, she's the only one to have an actual character. Her role's very similar to Vic's love interest in VCS, who for some reason wasn't featured much in the art for that game aside from a single loading screen.

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Mr_Rager
3,528

Mr_Rager 3,528

This is a great post don't get me wrong but how can you not like Huang? His dialogue was always setting up the next punch line from the other characters, I thought the banter in CTW was top notch but that's just me. I like the theory though and I do believe it in the sense that Ling was at the very least supposed to have a bigger role at some point.

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mde2
695

mde2 695

You don't hear me crying about Tao Cheng being promoted in Europe but ended up as underrated out of existence

What the hell does Tao Cheng have anything to do with this thread, even it's topic?

Tao wasn't the face of his respective game like Ling was.

and Rockstar's poor depiction of an ecstasy user.

How are Rockstar supposed to portray a druggie? Positively? In fact it fits his character. Tao Cheng is some spoiled son of a big-dog Triad and is completely irresponsible so in that respect I'd say they nailed his character on the head.

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mde2
695

mde2 695

OT: I doubt Ling was supposed to have a bigger role to be honest. Sex sells at the end of the day so why not have the hot chick be the face of the game? The artwork isn't indicative of what's in the actual game.

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Tao Cheng
451

Tao Cheng 451

You don't hear me crying about Tao Cheng being promoted in Europe but ended up as underrated out of existence

What the hell does Tao Cheng have anything to do with this thread, even it's topic?

Tao wasn't the face of his respective game like Ling was.

and Rockstar's poor depiction of an ecstasy user.

How are Rockstar supposed to portray a druggie? Positively? In fact it fits his character. Tao Cheng is some spoiled son of a big-dog Triad and is completely irresponsible so in that respect I'd say they nailed his character on the head.

For real kid? Ling was a minor character and was used to promote Chinatown Wars. In-game she dies in her second appearance like it's nothing. Tao Cheng was used as a promotion for GTAV, advertised like he's a major character only to turn out that he's just a character with less than 8 minutes of screen time with YouTube let's player plebs saying "ohhhh uhhh weed doesn't do that to you he's not high on weed maaaaaN". And to the second poster: screw you for thinking I'm a meme.

They didn't do much research with e-tards. It's disappointing to make the audience think he's high on weed. On the casting call I was expecting a scene where he eats an rc.

Edited February 21 by Tao Cheng

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mde2
695

mde2 695

For real kid? Ling was a minor character and was used to promote Chinatown Wars. In-game she dies in her second appearance like it's nothing. Tao Cheng was used as a promotion for GTAV, advertised like he's a major character only to turn out that he's just a character with less than 8 minutes of screen time with YouTube let's player plebs saying "ohhhh uhhh weed doesn't do that to you he's not high on weed maaaaaN". And to the second poster: screw you for thinking I'm a meme.

Buddy or should I say "kid" since you think it's an appropriate way to open a response because of how insecure you are about your posts, you're deluded and absolutely out of your mind. Tao Cheng is NOT marketed as a major character at all. I kept up with the marketing campaign from 2011-2013 and forward as the next gen and PC ports were released and never saw Tao Cheng once.

only to turn out that he's just a character with less than 8 minutes of screen time with YouTube let's player plebs saying "ohhhh uhhh weed doesn't do that to you he's not high on weed maaaaaN".

They didn't do much research with e-tards. It's disappointing to make the audience think he's high on weed. On the casting call I was expecting a scene where he eats an rc.

What in gods name are you babbling on about? I'm no expert but from what I've seen no one under the influence of marijuana acts the way he did. I personally thought he was a coke head in the cutscene where we first meet him because R* didn't exactly make it clear but eh. And what the hell is an "rc" and why do you feel the need to validate yourself by constantly sharing your knowledge on drugs?

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Helegad
727

Helegad 727

You don't hear me crying about Tao Cheng being promoted in Europe but ended up as underrated out of existence

What the hell does Tao Cheng have anything to do with this thread, even it's topic?

Tao wasn't the face of his respective game like Ling was.

and Rockstar's poor depiction of an ecstasy user.

How are Rockstar supposed to portray a druggie? Positively? In fact it fits his character. Tao Cheng is some spoiled son of a big-dog Triad and is completely irresponsible so in that respect I'd say they nailed his character on the head.

For real kid? Ling was a minor character and was used to promote Chinatown Wars. In-game she dies in her second appearance like it's nothing. Tao Cheng was used as a promotion for GTAV, advertised like he's a major character only to turn out that he's just a character with less than 8 minutes of screen time with YouTube let's player plebs saying "ohhhh uhhh weed doesn't do that to you he's not high on weed maaaaaN". And to the second poster: screw you for thinking I'm a meme.

They didn't do much research with e-tards. It's disappointing to make the audience think he's high on weed. On the casting call I was expecting a scene where he eats an rc.

What the f*ck is your deal with Tao Cheng? Are you butthurt because you think he makes people from your country look like idiots?

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Gian_Yagami
31

Gian_Yagami 31

Ling Shan has strong backstory, she will be great if become main heroine for this game. Back in gta lcs where Toshiko kasen has possibility become support character and Toni's girlfriend and R* makes her died, also happened on Ling Shan where she has possibility become Huang Lee's gf. Looks like R* always trying to make player broken heart.